No thank you. His memories—the good, the bad, and the very bad—were all that he had left. All that defined him. He didn’t want to become something else. Someone else.
“When you’re ready, then. I’ll always know where to find you.” Luca put a hand to Custo’s shoulder briefly, and then descended the stairs.
Custo dismissed the good-bye and turned back to his watch. There were no good-byes in Heaven, only unwanted, endless hellos.
A blink or an eon, and the boat appeared. Custo gripped the wall to contain a rush of anticipation.
How much time had passed while he’d been waiting, he couldn’t guess. A minute? A year? A millennia? Impossible to tell.
The narrow vessel carried two passengers: an old man, white hair glowing with the light of the gate, and tall, grim Shadowman, wrapped in his seethe of darkness. The old man passed, Heaven burst with jubilation and welcome, and the gate clanged shut against the potent throb of the twilight Shadowlands.
But this time Death didn’t leave, though divine light pierced and tore at his cloak, snapping it back toward the darkened tree line. Likewise, the shining black strands of his hair lifted, whipping from his broad shoulders in the streaming brilliance of the gate. His bared torso was defined with muscle, his fae-tinged skin flecked with gritty black, burning with Heaven’s brightness. As quickly as the light eroded the tip of his nose and wore away at his flesh, Shadow renewed him. Death’s expression was severe, the high slashes of his cheekbones growing prominent with his effort, but he showed no inclination to retreat.
At last.
“Kathleen!” Shadowman raged at the wall, his voice thick, deep, and cracked. His anguish shook the gate, the walls shifting to deeper hues.
So he’d come for her at last, the woman who’d tempted Death to fall for love. Why now, after all this time? Had something happened on Earth?
Custo needed to get home. Not knowing was torture.
“Kathleen!” Death called again, louder, resolute. His free hand fisted in defiance at his side; the other clutched the staff of his scythe, knuckles mottling with black. His body flexed, as if he faced into a violent, blasting wind. A law of Heaven, one of God knows how many, prohibited the faerie within the walls.
Maybe…
Custo reached with his mind to locate Death’s lost love. Maybe he could make a deal with a lord of the Shadowlands in return for a favor. Custo cast his consciousness out like a net, but came back empty. He cast again and sifted more carefully. Nothing. Damn.
Kathleen was not in Heaven.
“Kathleen!” Death threw his scythe into the water, as if repudiating any continued, willing concert with the divine. The light of Heaven tore his cloak to ribbons.
Custo’s mind darkened with subtle purpose, proof positive that Heaven was no place for him either.
“Hey!” he shouted from the top of the wall.
Shadowman looked up. His eyes were all black, glossy with power.
“Trade you,” Custo offered. Was such a thing possible?
No answer, just a throb of soul-deep, intense inspection.
“You want in or don’t you? Heaven’s no place for me, and I’m not hanging around until they figure it out.” Right about now it would become overwhelmingly apparent that he didn’t belong.
Custo glanced over his shoulder. No one coming for him. Yet.
“I do.” Shadowman spoke the words like a vow. The sound carried and penetrated to chill Custo’s marrow. He was glad he wouldn’t be here when Death discovered Kathleen was elsewhere.
Custo grinned. “Meet me at the gate.”
Custo took the steps by twos and threes. He kept his eyes from the grassy plains that led to the Great Halls. He didn’t want to lose his nerve. His chance.
He felt along the carved surface of the gate, and his hand warmed, burned, as it passed over the intricate figures of a couple entwined in an embrace, marking the lock to Heaven. Funneling every ounce of will, he pushed.
The gate cracked open.
Custo found Shadowman’s blistering hand mirrored his. A spark of light, and their positions were reversed. Custo was delivered.
Segue.
Without a backward glance, Custo set off at a run across the beach. He dived into the channel, aiming for the drifting boat. With any luck, there’d be an oar inside. A shock of wet cold stunned, but didn’t slow him. The stuff went in his mouth—salty—and his ears and nose. He blinked the drops out of his stinging eyes, urgency pushing him to stroke and kick a path across the water.
As he swam, he extended his mind for signs of pursuit. His consciousness broadened to find Luca back at the top of the wall with a host of others, looking out, tracking his progress. And below, he perceived how the sandy shelf fell away and the water rapidly deepened.
Something sinuous grazed his leg as he reached Shadow-man’s slender gray boat. The side pitched as Custo swung a leg over and heaved himself inside, accomplishing the feat with a wet body roll that nearly capsized the vessel. He knelt immediately and looked into the water.
The shadow of a large creature—not a fish—broke the surface. A mermaid, if he had to put a name to it, with greenish skin that went blue over defined cheekbones forming the features of a water goddess. Her hair twisted in thick, frondy pieces like Medusa, and her black eyes blinked rapidly, regarding him. She lay on her back so that the water lapped her full, tight breasts.
Oh, sweet beauty. His mind clouded, Adam and Segue and Earth receding from his consciousness. Adam would understand…
The mermaid smiled and teased one of her nipples.
A wave of desire flowed over Custo, painfully gathering at his groin. His sudden need washed away everything except the mermaid’s glorious undulating body. His gaze roved over her slick form, looking for a place to plug himself in and drown in ecstasy. Now that would be a good death!
A tremendous bellow snapped his attention again to the great wall. Shadowman’s low-pitched shout of rage shook the sandy shores of Heaven like an earthquake, the grains settling into fine, tiered ripples.
Uh oh. Seemed as though Death discovered that his love was not in Heaven.
The water rose with Shadowman’s anger, the boat perching precariously on a wave as the channel water retracted with a great sucking noise away from the forest’s shore.
The mermaid screeched and bared pointy piranha teeth before diving into the choppy waves.
Custo reared back—not the kind of kiss he’d been looking for.
A tsunami was building, the latent energy of the waters swelling beneath the boat. Custo looked for an oar. Nothing. An oar couldn’t save him anyway. He sat in the boat bottom and gripped the sides.
With a sudden rush, the boat was propelled toward the Shadowlands. He sailed through the air like a spear until the water hit the tree line and he lost his hold, tossed into the grip of a tree. He clung to the branches as water tumbled beneath him. The boat careened away, shattered nearby, and showered him with the splinters of Shadowman’s bitter disappointment.
Custo shook his head clear, the mermaid’s seduction receding with the water. She had utterly enslaved his mind, subsuming his purpose to her will. If her power over him was any indication, the Shadowlands was one seriously dangerous place.
He stayed in his nest until the water ebbed, rattling the branches in belated shock and scanning the density of the wood below for danger. Finding nothing, he picked his way down to the sludge. It was tight work. His jeans were plastered to his legs, restraining movement, and his shirt ripped under his sleeve on a bony branch, but he made it to the bottom and ran through the squishy mire into the darkness.
Mortality had to be on the other side of the forest, didn’t it? Through the deep trees and a bright crossing, Earth would just have to accommodate this no-name bastard again. Then Segue, and the message for Adam. After that, he had no idea.